More Tuesday’s Tools here! An oldie but goodie: Check out Wired’s Gadget Lab for writing must-haves. I can’t say I agree with everything on the list (can somebody explain the purpose of the Alphasmart?) but for the most part, it’s dead-on. A partial breakdown: 1-An ultraportable laptop Gadget Lab recommends a VAIO or Macbook, or [...]
Want more Tuesday’s Tools? Click here! Your characters’ names are one of their most important aspects. In most cases, readers will learn their names from a dust jacket or other promotional materials before learning anything else about them, so why not make the names good ones? Kabalarians.com used to have a much more extensive list [...]
This is the seventh in a weekly series about tools for writers. For the rest of the series, go here.) When you just don’t have inspiration for that fantasy or sci-fi epic, visit They Fight Crime! for the most creative story-starters ever. Examples: He’s a witless neurotic gentleman spy haunted by an iconic dead American [...]
(This is the sixth in a weekly series about tools for writers. For the rest of the series, go here.) In the coming weeks, I’ll cover some free resources for nonfiction book writers, but I’d like to showcase this book as it’s the best non-free tool I’ve found for book proposal writers. (Unless you go [...]
(This is the fifth in a weekly series about tools for writers. For the rest of the series, go here.) For fiction writers: I love the free Eclectic Writer’s Character Chart, which has spaces to fill in everything from the color of your hero’s eyes to the person he secretly admires. An HTML version is [...]
(This is the fourth in a weekly series about tools for writers. For the rest of the series, go here.) Here’s a big list of journalists’ personal web sites, compiled by Sreenath Sreenivasan. This came in handy for me recently when I was updating my resume and wasn’t sure how to phrase certain items. I [...]
(This is the third in a weekly series about tools for writers. For the rest of the series, go here.) The title of this gizmo is a bit of a misnomer, because the tool I’m discussing today is accessed online. I discovered David Seah’s Printable CEO through Lifehacker (a blog that purports to make people [...]
(This is the second in an ongoing series about tools for writers. For the first post in the series, see Submission Tracker Roundup.) I have to say, my love for Roughdraft borders on the irrational. There are lots of free word processors for PC users out there, starting with WordPad. Why download another piece of [...]
I’ve been freelancing a little since my move to DC, and it’s only served to remind me of how badly I need a way to keep my ideas, submissions, queries, and other files organized. When I used a PC I used Sonar (more on that later), but on my Mac options seem to be few [...]